Quote:
Originally Posted by Thunder910
20 has about 85~ students, but we struggle to keep them all engaged.
Exactly, it is. One of our major goals this coming season is to engage more students on the team. Right now, of these 80-some students, maybe 40 do a decent amount of work during the build season, 20 are a major part, and 10 show up near-daily. For 80 kids, that's not a lot.
|
MORT has put all the mechanisms into place to allow any and all students to be engaged and involved in the team in all aspects. By having them create practice bots, creating prototypes in the Fall, running workshops in the Summer, having a full FRC based robotics curriculum in school, having multiple sub-teams, and having team 193, we've created several avenues of engagement. At this point, I believe that getting more students fully engaged is no longer up to us, but now it falls on the students to put into this program whatever they want to get out of it. I believe that after a certain point, there is only so much you can do to coax the students into being as dedicated to the team as other students are. At the end of the day, we have plenty of engaged students who will see more leadership opportunities and privileges than their less-involved peers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thunder910
How do you find the funding to fund two whole teams?
|
As for funding; our district has always supported us since we started out, and it has increased steadily, with a big boom in the past 3 seasons. We have FIRST programs throughout the district in all schools and the community is well aware of the team. Our new lead mentor, David Bodmer, is also extremely personable and this helps reach out to members of the community who rally for the team. The principal and superintendent work with the lead mentor and he is able to sell the program to them very effectively and show growth, as well as team accomplishments. Now, the district helps pay for much of 193 and also for 11's entrance fees because our team has such a strong background in gaining corporate sponsors. We have proved that we are not solely reliant on district funding, and I think that is why we are a responsible investment to them. We have also hosted the NJ FLL Tournament for years, and now the Mt. Olive District event. Again, proving responsibility. We have had multiple visits from politicians, so that provides the district with credibility on their end because it shows the public the effectiveness of our programs.
In all honesty, we are most likely just incredibly lucky to have certain people on our team and in the community looking out for us as well as a strong lead mentor and amazing team parents/mentors.